February 17, 2015



A Man Is Out Of A Job (And Much More) Over This Innocuous Crap

A man's life was destroyed over hearsay, miscommunication, and misjudged emotions -- and because of the pernicious thing that feminism has become.

As I've been posting here as of late, women used to demand to be treated like equals (and I'm, of course, all for that). But now feminists demand to be treated like eggshells.

That's how a mob brought down Bora Zivkovic, who became the eye of the firestorm over what was deemed -- eek, SEXUAL HARASSMENT! -- but which in no way met the legal standard (more on that below)...or, frankly, the standards of a reasonable person.

By "reasonable person" I mean a person who hasn't been drinking the feminist Kool Aid that says any man who makes any statement or joke less sexually neutral than "Why did the chicken cross the road?" must be fired, shamed, financially ruined, and squashed like a bug between the thighs of Andrea Dworkin.

And, getting back to Zivkovic, what horrible, egregious things, exactly, went on?

From a Cosmo piece by Michelle Ruiz:

Take the case of Hannah Waters, a 27-year-old science writer, and Bora Zivkovic, the influential (now former) editor of Scientific American magazine's blog network. Waters says Zivkovic began promoting her blog posts online after they met in 2010, which she says helped launch her career. But she told friends she was disturbed by what she describes as his lingering hugs and a Twitter DM that read "I love you!!!" By 2011, he'd hired her to write for Scientific American. At a "tweetup" for science writers in New York, she says she felt uncomfortable when he gave her a rose from a street vendor and "jokingly" called her his "concubine." Waters hesitated to call their interactions sexual harassment at first, but in 2013, she and two other writers, Monica Byrne and Kathleen Raven, wrote blog posts accusing Zivkovic of sexual harassment. "It wasn't overt, textbook, grabbing a butt, or asking me on a date," says Waters of her experience with Zivkovic, "but I felt deeply uncomfortable and sexualized and it created anxiety problems for me. I wanted to make a career as a writer on my own merit, but it felt like it wasn't my work that was being elevated." Zivkovic, on the other hand, flatly denies he acted inappropriately toward any of the women and says the incidents they labeled harassment were misunderstandings that didn't happen in professional settings or situations. "This is a small community, and we were all friends or trying to become friends," he says. "We were all together building a new, more egalitarian world of online science writing. We all met in social settings and had drinks together. Nobody felt this was a working environment." Zivkovic says the "concubine" comment, for example, was an "innocuous joke." He says he and Waters were smoking outside a bar when he bought a rose for his wife, who was inside. When the salesman gave him two, he says he joked--to the salesman, not Waters--"What's that, one for the wife, one for the concubine?" As for the Twitter DM, Zivkovic says the word love can convey many things, including admiration and friendship. Hugs, he notes, were common in the community.

According to Ruiz, Raven did eventually dip her toe into adult behavior, and here's how a proto-adult -- as opposed to an woman-child infantilized by feminism -- behaves.

In the aftermath of the controversy, Raven says she's more likely to call out behavior that makes her uncomfortable. "At a past job, an editor sent me some Facebook messages, saying, 'How old are you? How long have you and your husband been married? Your blouse looks nice.' I took this guy aside, and I said, 'Those comments were inappropriate, and could you please not make them?' He didn't seem happy about being confronted, but he did stop messaging me with personal questions. These are small things that most women push aside, but it was interfering with my ability to focus at work."

Sadly, life is not one giant, cushy down pillow. So...if someone is being an asshole or something bothers you, and if you are not an earthworm or indoctrinated by feminism, you open your nice big adult mouth and say something about it.

If, however, the person engaging in the behavior you are troubled by refuses to stop, and if that person happens to be your boss or your co-worker, well, then you have a case. That's because the legal definition of actual sexual harassment involves "severe and pervasive" and also debilitating behavior. And then there's what what Zivkovic was accused of, which, sickeningly, is the sort of "sexual harassment" that's defined as "whatever feminists say it is."

As I put it in a column:

Wayne State University law professor Kingsley Browne explains in "Biology at Work" that the "hostile environment" type of sexual harassment involves a work environment "permeated with sexuality." Browne told me via email: "The legal question is whether the harassment is sufficiently 'severe or pervasive,' and the way you show that something is pervasive is to show that there's a lot of it."

And looking back on these cases, Monica Byrne apparently knew Zivkovic for about a month. At a lunch, she launched into talk of a strip club, and Zivkovic got a little icky-personal about sex. Byrne later emailed Zivkovic to tell him she was uncomfortable.

Zivkovic apologized and doesn't seem to have contacted her again after that. In other words, his behavior in no way could be considered "pervasive." Well, not if someone's not on a witch hunt and looking to take somebody down, and never mind if they're actually guilty of what they're accused of.

Also, as I noted previously, she wasn't employed by Zivkovic, and lunch doesn't count as a "workplace," even if she was looking to do some work.

Hannah Waters apparently never said anything to Zivkovic about her discomfort. And her comment on her piece about this reflects a woman who needs to work on her self-worth and maybe her science writing, as well as putting on her big girl panties and learning to speak up when she's uncomfortable:

After a hug goodbye that lasted a second too long, we split ways, my head spinning. Did I imagine that? Was he trying to sleep with me? And then: Am I actually any good at writing, or was he just supporting me because he was sexually interested in me?

More from Waters:

No one should be made to feel this way, no less someone early in her or his career. The nagging self-doubt is enough to turn people away from doing the things they love.

Really? If that's all it takes, then they just don't love those things enough or they just aren't cut out for being treated equally -- with men, that is -- and they should stay home baking cookies or get a nice job in Better Dresses.

And read the account by Kathleen Raven. Oh, the horror, the horror. After what looks like a period of years, she finally, finally told him she had some limits. And guess what: When she did, he apologized and stopped.

As for the motive of women who make accusations of sexual harassment over a bit of innocuous behavior (that is not anywhere in the neighborhood of either "severe" or "pervasive"), I suspect that it's a way for weak people to have unearned power over others.

As for the results of this thinking and behavior (and the increasing danger men have of losing everything on a mere accusation), I hear from more and more men that they avoid saying much of anything to women in the workplace.

Thanks, wymyn!

Finally, a particularly ugly bit of business is how so many "science" writers closed their eyes and hopped like bunnies onto the Bora Witch Hunt train. Yes, these fine, self-proclaimed "skeptics" believed him guilty as they heard just one side of the story and dutifully accepted that his behavior was "sexual harassment" simply because his accusers said so.

And getting back to the behavior of the women: Sadly, some women are raised to be adult infants, and just don't have the chops to function in the adult world -- a world where conversation or behavior sometimes makes you uncomfortable, and you sometimes (gasp!) have to squeak out a remark like, "Shut your yap, bub...I don't want to hear it."

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